Man given new life to be idle, mostly before a short dash (7)
I believe the answer is:
lazarus
'man given new life' is the definition.
(Jesus brought Lazarus back to life)
'be idle mostly before a short dash' is the wordplay.
'be idle' becomes 'laze' (laze around).
'mostly' means to remove the last letter (most but not all of the word).
'before' says to put letters next to each other.
'short dash' becomes 'rus' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'laze' with its last letter removed is 'laz'.
'laz'+'a'+'rus'='LAZARUS'
'to' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for lazarus that I've seen before include "Dives and -- (NT)" , "In the Gospels, he was raised from the dead" , "Brother of Mary and Martha, raised by Jesus from the dead" , "Poor man" , "Brother of Martha and Mary, whom Jesus restored to life" .)